Well, unfortunately I've got the WiDi software working, and though I picked up another PTV3000 and have progressed further, the end result is still unsatisfactory. At this point I'm unsure if it's Dell, Intel, MS or Netgear, but I've decided I've had enough of WiDi for now and I'll be returning yet another PTV3000.
Here is the current situation. All of the newest drivers and WiDi software installed. First of all, got in a new PTV3000 and attempted to set it up. Under no circumstances would the WiDi software see the Netgear device when scanning. Saw that there was a newer version of firmware for the PTV3000, downloaded it and attempted to install it. Unfortunately, Netgear is lacking in both their documentation and their support/engineering - as the firmware upgrade process simply will not run using IE10 - period. Finally tried using Chrome and it successfully updated the firmware. Strike 2 for Netgear. Then, when attempting to connect, the WiDi software did see the PTV3000, but it demonstrated very inconsistent behavior - with one exception. In every single case it reported an error that I was using an "unsupported wireless protocol" and pretty much indicated I should be using 80211a/b/g/n etc. At first if I closed that error box, everything worked correctly - at first. It started disconnecting at random, and often would refuse to connect. I called Netgear support (very very poor support) and walked through the issue with two different people (had to also register the product on the call because their registration page also failed on IE10). After about 45 minutes, the tech claimed to never have seen these issues or that error msg before - even though it's been reported on their own support site. He indicated that updating the firmware should fix the issue - obviously not having heard me when I stated what firmware version I had upgraded to. He had no further assistance to provide and offered to escalate the issue.
My situation is that I simply don't have the time to beta best this stuff. Calls take far too long, and wait holds are excessive - only to typically end up talking to somebody who has no clue about what the product even is supposed to do and gets flustered wthen their "script" fails. So, I'm going to punt on WiDi. I've had enough - it's simply not worth the effort. I've now tried two times, but there will not be a third - at least for a long time. I'm simply going to get an HDMI dongle and avoid this flaky technology.